Adrian Smith (statistician)
British statistician
Sir Adrian Frederick Melhuish Smith, FRS (born 9 September 1946) is a British statistician who was chief executive of the Alan Turing Institute from 2018 to 2023 and president of the Royal Society from 2020 to 2025.
Early life and education
Smith was born on 9 September 1946 in Dawlish in Devon. He was educated at Selwyn College, Cambridge, and University College London, where his PhD supervisor was Dennis Lindley.
Career
From 1977 until 1990, he was professor of statistics and head of department of mathematics at the University of Nottingham. He was subsequently at Imperial College, London, where he was head of the mathematics department. Smith is a former deputy vice-chancellor of the University of London and became vice-chancellor of the university on 1 September 2012. He stood down from the role in August 2018 to become the director of the Alan Turing Institute.
Smith is a member of the governing body of the London Business School. He served on the Advisory Council for the Office for National Statistics from 1996 to 1998, was statistical advisor to the Nuclear Waste Inspectorate from 1991 to 1998 and was advisor on Operational Analysis to the Ministry of Defence from 1982 to 1987.
He is a former president of the Royal Statistical Society.
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